Juggler's World: Vol. 38, No. 4

Snapshot

Tight Spaces

Bill Giduz

Greedy little fin-flappers... And a sight like I had never seen
before. Carp in Lake Mead outside Las Vegas packed so tightly in the
warm water around the dock we stood upon that ducks walked on top of
them.

The tourists could have dropped a hook in their gaping mouths as easily
as popcorn, but they evidently had no such fear. Their conditioned
response to the people above came from years of handouts. Why, some of
these same fish were probably waiting for kernels of corn back in 1984
while we juggled like mad for a week in July inside the Showboat Hotel
just 20 miles away in Las Vegas...

Because I'm not a gambling man, Las Vegas has always represented
juggling rather than gaming to me. And though you don't have many bad
juggling trips, this one certainly started out that way. Ten minutes
in the air and spouse Ellen double-checked our airline tickets. "These
say we return Tuesday, not Monday." Oh no, she's right. As bargain
basement specials, there's no way to change them. The boss at work
won't like this. A pall settles for the rest of the flight. Our
hostess greets us at baggage claim in Las Vegas with more bad news.
The juggler we came to see was called away to Europe early and left
yesterday. But what about the pictures I planned to take? What about
the interview? "Sorry, that's show biz." Earlier tragedy with the
tickets looms very large now, its effect multiplied...

So the weekend turned into a different sort of juggling trip, and not
an unpleasant one. Usually you don't see much more than the clubs in
front of your face and other jugglers on stage. We ended up touring
the surrounding countryside for three days - climbing twisted boulders
in Red Rock State Park, walking over London Bridge (which is now in
Arizona) and, of course, watching the carp feed.

As the snapshot shows, they certainly looked crowded. Which brings me
to this issue of "Juggler's World," It's so crowded that a lot of good
material got bumped all the way into next issue. Bad news for an
editor, but a sign of a good thing, I think. It seems that our
editorial choice is to continue disappointing writers and depriving
jugglers of news, or to add more pages to each issue. I say let's give
those carp some room to swim.